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Neil Oliver insures his hair for a million pounds

The presenter of the TV series Coast has insured his hair for one million pounds. Neil Oliver’s distinctive windswept locks join a long line of physical assets celebrities have insured.

Returning from a day tramping hills and glens, Oliver said, ‘My hair is up there with Ken Dodd’s teeth and Jordan’s tits.’

The Scotsman’s hair has become as much part of the shows he presents as the landscape of Britain he surveys. He is said to wear a kilt to accentuate the wild manliness of his hairy appearance.

‘Here I am,’ he says, ‘walking the beautiful Neolithic settlement of Orkney’s Skara Brae, and yet the viewers can’t help looking at my hair -so silky, and yet not the least wispy of girly. No wonder I am renowned in the highlands and the lowlands as the ‘lovely hirsute one’.’

Casually flicking an untamed lock from his eyes, he shouted into the wind; ‘Legend has it that if I were to have my hair shaved off and knotted into a flaxen rope, one could use it to scale the south side of Edinburgh Castle.’

But it is understood that the insurers have insisted that Oliver sleep for the rest of his life wearing a hairnet.

A spokeswoman for Scottish Widows said they were satisfied that Oliver’s hair ‘was the real thing’ as it had remained in place in a high wind on Ben Nevis.

‘We have been reluctant to agree this type of insurance,’ she said,’ ever since Tina Turner tried to set her legs on fire to claim the insurance money.’